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Winter 2017 ARTS & CRAFTS HOMES| 59

ABOVE Unusual geometry marks an interior passage. BOTTOM, FROM LEFT Original

furnishings remain in this house owned by the Gimson family for 114 years. Parging softens

the large timbers and thick walls of local stone. Whitewash creates bright interiors.

About Ernest Gimson

The architect and furniture designer Ernest

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the tenets of the Arts & Crafts movement.

At age 19, Gimson had met William Morris

and been inspired. He often said that his

chief aim was to bring pride and joy back

into the work of the British working man.

After attending the Leicester School of

Art, Gimson, on Morris’s recommendation,

completed his training in London with the

architect John Sedding. The studio was next

door to the Morris & Co. showrooms, and

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Crafts design. Through Sedding he met the

Barnsleys, master builders and furniture

designers. Gimson and the Barnsley broth-

ers moved to the Cotswolds in 1893, where

they combined crafts such as chair making

with more traditional architectural work.

They made everything from the ivory-inlaid

stalls in St. Andrew’s Chapel in Westminster

Cathedral to the plasterwork for Debenham

House in London’s Holland Park. Gimson

planned to found a utopian crafts village.

He died when he was just 54 , but his work

continues to be appreciated a century later.

COURTESY NATIONAL TRUST JAMES DOBSON